taster
Rookie
That simply begs the question.
You're assuming those who test positive have intentionally cheated, but you can't possibly know that. Simply asserting they that they have is futile. You're not omniscient, and neither is anyone else.
Tennis needs to introduce a zero tolerance doping policy
- Thread starter Spencer Gore
- Start date
You're assuming those who test positive have intentionally cheated, but you can't possibly know that. Simply asserting they that they have is futile. You're not omniscient, and neither is anyone else.
taster
Rookie
I'm assuming divine help for no-one, god only knows where you got that from.
You made the point before about unfair competition and cheating - that's a given, we all know this. My thoughts on the subject, adequately deal with that in this thread . I'm not about to restate them all ad nauseum because you haven't accepted or bothered to read them.
If you wish to allow innocent players to be punished - take that position. A agree with the current position, which fortunately, will not change because sporting authorities recognise the enormous harm that would be done to an innocent player for the sake of maintaining the perception of a clean sport.
LOBALOT
Legend
It is not futile. It is easy. 100% if they test positive they are guilty. These man made drugs aren't just floating around in the ether. All those stories are complete BS.
It is not me being omnipresent (not your term) but the test result that dictates this.
There are no more massage finger alibis. No disco party kisses. No more boyfriend nights out.
The players that don't cheat and don't test positive are the ones that need defending.
The funny thing is these guys somehow manage not to have these drugs in their system. Where are you guys in defending the majority of the players that don't test positive?
You simple fan boys and your doper players that you defend. Why aren't you defending the players that the dopers stole from?
taster
Rookie
Yes that's right.
I think what's been meant by zero tolerance in this thread, is a position where a ban is based exclusively on testing positive, and dispensing with any kind of defence or mitigation etc.
taster
Rookie
You're just repeating yourself and other posts in this thread, it's boring.
taster
Rookie
If your parents see that you've written this you probably won't be getting any presents from Santa this year.
LOBALOT
Legend
Correct there is no defense. This is not a court of law. When one introduces lame excuses then
You are right I am sorry.
LOBALOT
Legend
Because if we let these excuses continue we will continue to see the cheaters cheat form those that don't cheat to the detriment of the sport.
Right now how can one say Sinner has won anything?
If it were you on the other side of the net competing you certainly wouldn't be making these excuses for him.
Likewise Iga or Halep or the others.
You gotta look at it from the other side of the net.
taster
Rookie
you aren't addressing the substantive issues.
LOBALOT
Legend
I am doing just that. I am addressing the concrete result of the testing and all the thousands of players who don't test +.
Again, I ask what if you were on the other side of the net and clean. What would you want?
You certainly wouldn't want to see these lame excuses driving the decision. Right now the test result doesn't even mater.
All that maters is the player ranking. If the player is high ranked he/she gets a month during the offseason. If the player is not high ranked they get banned for 8 years.
taster
Rookie
this is all covered in the thread, talk to someone else who wants to engage with you on this, i don't.
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
I appreciate the perspective, but I disagree.
We do not need to be certain of their guilt, because they do not face criminal punishments. The difference between my friend who stole something from me and a player who dopes is that my friend faces a jail sentence if convicted. Tennis players face fines, suspensions and reputational harm. Guilt on a balance of probabilities is appropriate. Strict liability is appropriate. They're likely necessary to have any enforcement at all.
Our punishments are justified where they produce just outcomes. We want a fair sport. The impact of doping on clean players' careers and on the reputation of the sport as a whole is profound and damaging. We can balance the potential harm to wrongfully convicted players against the potential harm to the sport and make a call. You may feel differently, but cases like Swiatek's and Sinner's do not cry out for a reckoning with epistemic uncertainty -- at least not to me.
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
I don’t want dopers in sport. But I also would like a system where if someone close to me like a child or sibling gets a contaminated product and tests positive, there is a fair way for them to establish their innocence. They likely spent their whole life training to be a tennis pro and otherwise everything would be a waste because of this accidental contamination - if it was accidental. While I look at most contaminated product stories by busted athletes with suspicion as just made-up stories, I also can believe that all kind of manufactured products have small levels of contamination in them. So the system has to accommodate some way where a player can defend himself.
"Guilty"? I thought you said, repeatedly, that this is not a legal matter at all, let alone a matter of criminal justice. Why then do you persist in using this kind of loaded terminology in condemning people? Can't keep your theories straight?
The simple fact is that "positive test = immediate permanent ban" is not the rule. It has never been the rule. It never will be the rule. No players, either individually or collectively, would stand for that. Even loudmouths like Kyrgios would never want a disciplinary regime of this kind to exist in reality (because someday it might be applied to them, obviously). Moreover, no participants in virtually any other occupation, profession, or industry would tolerate such a rule either. No sane person is willing to accept instant career death for a single violation no matter how small or potentially unintentional.
Only in a hot-air-dominated online forum like this one could such a cartoonish proposal even be deemed a worthwhile topic of discussion. The perverse incentives here promote tough-guy talk rather than rationality.
People on here and other places acting like this is no big deal, are in fantasyland. Tennis is in a crisis. They have major issues. You have top players getting popped for doping. All this accidental nonsense. This sport is going the way of boxing and fast. People are gonna tune out. They are covering for big players, now they got themselves into a position of covering for the small ones to. Cause the lawsuits are gonna come flying.
LOBALOT
Legend
I did. I guess I used the wrong term if you are thinking "guilty" from a legal sense. It should be the rule and the only reason it isn't is because WADA has been weakened so much now it is just a joke.
All you softy guys just cover for the criminals who want to take short cuts to get ahead like Sinner and Iga instead of players trying to make it to the top through hard work.
Anything that Iga or Sinner has done or does in the future is completely suspect at this point.
Thats exactly how I feel. Screw this sport. Over the last year they have lost this fan.
Drob
Hall of Fame
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
This is an important perspective. One of the other posters made a helpful comment about separating the question of innocence/guilt from liability. In the situation you describe, your child would be held liable for whatever enters their body. They may be innocent, but the presence of the chemical in their system is in an of itself a harm. The only issue is who is going to bear it. Strict liability rules essentially just shift the harm back onto your child. In other words, someone is going to get harmed in this situation. Either the sport, the opponent, or your child. Presuming innocence all around, the most just outcome may still be to shift that harm onto your child. I don't say it is, but it may be, and I think that's the premise of these kinds of regulations.
Half the board I think is like well if your kid lost to a doped player well your kid should have doped.
Drob
Hall of Fame
@Spencer Gore
so, you think that this minuscule amounts in Jannik and Iga cases, way below the "threshold" amounts are late-found eresidusl amounts if what had been > threshold amts. - and therefore impactful - many weeks or months earlier?
Should Daniil Medvedev be crowned AO champ and Paiolini RG champ?
so, you think that this minuscule amounts in Jannik and Iga cases, way below the "threshold" amounts are late-found eresidusl amounts if what had been > threshold amts. - and therefore impactful - many weeks or months earlier?
Should Daniil Medvedev be crowned AO champ and Paiolini RG champ?
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Drob
Hall of Fame
Drob
Hall of Fame
no. juries in US and a few countries and officially apptointed or populary elected judges decide malority of civil cases. that is the tradition. Arbitration IS increasingly encroaching and possibly could be reaching close to majority of civil cases. Are there statistics?
Drob
Hall of Fame
Drob
Hall of Fame
Drob
Hall of Fame
hope not
Thats the impression im getting.
zagor
Bionic Poster
too late now...
If I didn't know you better, I'd think you're insinuating something here
Sorry this is going back to the stone age.
Its like saying anyone who kills someone should be in prison for life, no matter if youre a mass murderer or if someone threw himself in front of your car.
Its a big difference on Lance Armstrongs doping machine and potentially getting cream on your skin from your physio.
Its like thinking countries with a death penalty will have less crime, simply immature reasoning.
Its like saying anyone who kills someone should be in prison for life, no matter if youre a mass murderer or if someone threw himself in front of your car.
Its a big difference on Lance Armstrongs doping machine and potentially getting cream on your skin from your physio.
Its like thinking countries with a death penalty will have less crime, simply immature reasoning.
Drob
Hall of Fame
irrespective of what Sinner did or not do (or Iga), this point is welll taken and altho it should be obvious to all, looks like maybe not, so good you said it.
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
The difference between Armstrong and these folks is that Armstrong never failed a doping test.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
Armstrong did fail one but the cycling federation covered it up, but cycling is a team sport so there was eyewitness testimony, usually disregarded.
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
Thanks for the correction. My mistake.
lol r u talking about rusty peaktoo late now...
gamelovergold
Semi-Pro
This going soft on testing positive and trying to bring great big words like let 10 guilty person free instead of punishing 1 innocent person is doing more harm than benefit. Dopers (who are taking PED) are not punished in the fear of unjustice to innocent person is just plain misjudgement . A person put his hand in fire will get burned . It does not matter you put your hand knowingly or unknowingly. Even with the best intention sometime some player can unknowingly take banned substances because it can happen .Best remedy is a minimum punishment first time with strict condition for heavy punishment (even ban for long years) . Letting go free is no remedy for doping. It only increases the confidence of doping player. He sucessfully beat the system and next time he will be more carefull so he does not get caught in tests.
If you are breaking the rule you are to be penalised. Every player can make stories and you will never know that who is telling the truth and who is not. And last thing if you are not giving punishment for testing positive than why this whole drama of WADA and NADA .
Whole system looses its credibility because you are not strict on giving serious plenty on testing positive. 99% players are testing negative and why only some players are testing positive . Is this is not clear that person who failed the test is person who doped.
If you are breaking the rule you are to be penalised. Every player can make stories and you will never know that who is telling the truth and who is not. And last thing if you are not giving punishment for testing positive than why this whole drama of WADA and NADA .
Whole system looses its credibility because you are not strict on giving serious plenty on testing positive. 99% players are testing negative and why only some players are testing positive . Is this is not clear that person who failed the test is person who doped.
vive le beau jeu !
Talk Tennis Guru
If I didn't know you better, I'd think you're insinuating something here
#TheNeedle
RaulRamirez
Legend
This has been an interesting thread, yet I am frustrated in trying to come up with anything solution-oriented. I'm also not all that knowledgeable about testing procedures, percentages of false positives, false negatives, possibilities of "innocent" contamination, etc.
I think that there is a consensus in:
a. wanting to see a clean sport
b.wanting to see equal and fair treatment of all players, regardless of ranking
c. consequences for bad actors
The problems come with "c", and the amount of wiggle room accorded here.
In brief, while I want "a" and "b", I can't advocate for zero tolerance when the testing seems so problematic, which affects "c".
As for the legal principle of letting x number of guilty go free before convicting one innocent, generally I agree with this in a criminal case. But I don't think that this philosophy applies to associations whose objective is to ensure fair competition among its athletes.
To that end, if "Joe Schmo commits a crime (say shoplifting) but is found not guilty", that doesn't affect me in the same way that " Competitor Joe Schmo is unpunished for taking banned substances". It's a different dynamic and construct.
I think that there is a consensus in:
a. wanting to see a clean sport
b.wanting to see equal and fair treatment of all players, regardless of ranking
c. consequences for bad actors
The problems come with "c", and the amount of wiggle room accorded here.
In brief, while I want "a" and "b", I can't advocate for zero tolerance when the testing seems so problematic, which affects "c".
As for the legal principle of letting x number of guilty go free before convicting one innocent, generally I agree with this in a criminal case. But I don't think that this philosophy applies to associations whose objective is to ensure fair competition among its athletes.
To that end, if "Joe Schmo commits a crime (say shoplifting) but is found not guilty", that doesn't affect me in the same way that " Competitor Joe Schmo is unpunished for taking banned substances". It's a different dynamic and construct.
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
A fair summary. Can you elaborate on what you find problematic about the testing regime?
RaulRamirez
Legend
Some of it, admittrdly, is lack of knowledge on my part, as I've just never delved too deeply into testing procedures and inaccuracies - for all sports.
But I'm really just drawing on so much of this thread. How can there be rigidity or zero tolerance when trace amounts of various substances (not enough, in many cases, to give someone a performance advantage) can be detected through no fault of that player? I also realize that some of the excuses are also BS. Frustrated by it all.
Rovesciarete
Hall of Fame
@The Guru was very helpful to shift more attention to a key paper, I cited earlier but almost forgot, which illuminates how easily ‘accidental doping’ through contamination can happen.
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Usually players get caught at the end of a doping cycle. So it’s only natural that the amounts found are usually very tiny. If you check doping cases historically, you will find it has always been tiny amounts. Saying that the amounts found are not sufficient to give a performance advantage is a bogus excuse by the fanboys.
TrickyWithTheWindy
New User
It is frustrating.
As @Arak pointed out, "trace amounts" tells us very little. One of the most disheartening aspects of these situations is how easily tropes like "trace amounts" and "billionths of a gram" get used to misinform and deflect attention from the issue. Intentionally or unintentionally, most of the tennis commentariat is guilty of this. Two world number ones get popped and instead of getting a conversation about the doping problem in tennis, we get a conversation about the contamination problem in the supplement industry, or an oversensitivity problem in our anti-doping regimes.
The point is, whether the result of contamination or intentional doping, it's likely going to be "trace amounts". The study that @The Guru cited in another thread identified those possibilities: "The low urine concentration can be interpreted in two different ways: 1. it can be the tail end of a drug voluntarily used to enhance performance; or 2. it is the direct consequence of a contamination."
Zero-tolerance is the current policy. The premise is simple: when someone has a performance enhancing drug in their system, a harm is already done to the sport. It cannot be undone. The only question is who is going to bear the cost for it: the person who had the drug in their system, the opponent, or the whole sport whose reputation for fairness and integrity is on the line. The policy says it should be the player who had the drug is their system.
Players have fair notice. They know what's at stake and can take necessary precautions. Almost all of them do this successfully, either by avoiding contamination or by masking their doping programs.
The issues aren't policy related, they're enforcement related. As a consequence, we have a dirty sport and now everyone knows it.
